LOS ANGELES – Arlin Pacheco turned her video camera from the kittens on her Hollywood porch to the police officers she saw chasing and tackling a neighbor.

After getting closer, she recorded one officer pressing his knee on the man’s neck and punching his face five times.

Taken in August, the clip of suspected gang member William Cardenas’ arrest gained little attention before being posted last week on the popular YouTube Web site.

Footage of two other arrests soon followed, and the images have renewed allegations of police brutality in a city already infamous for videotaped beatings of suspects.

The latest videos also prompted a backlash among some law enforcement officials, who point out that editing can skew context and that widespread exposure of the clips might give officers pause in the future, even when force is justified.

“You know, policing is oftentimes not pretty,” Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton said. “The video, as we’ve seen from time to time, particularly if you’re looking at a slice of it, makes it look even less pretty.”

Videos of police using force have sparked varying degrees of outrage from California to Philadelphia and Europe after onlookers captured incidents on cheap cameras or video cell phones, then posted footage on the Internet.

Nowhere has the phenomenon been more of a fixture than Los Angeles, home of the 1991 Rodney King beating.

Recent images of an Iranian-American student at UCLA being repeatedly shocked with a Taser by campus police has been viewed nearly a million times on YouTube and led to protests and an independent investigation.

Police said the footage was notable for what it left out: The student refused to comply with rules that he show a college identity card or leave the library.

Another video showed an LAPD officer using pepper spray on a handcuffed homeless man who was then left in a closed patrol car.

Activists and some residents said the clips reflect the ugly reality of a brutal police department.

“A video speaks for itself,” said Sherman Austin, 23, who trains a network of amateur videographers who film arrests and post footage on the Web site CopwatchLA. “The camera doesn’t lie.”

Police countered that short clips don’t reflect what led to the need for force.

In the Cardenas case, Bratton said an administrative investigation was under way, though a court commissioner found the officers did nothing wrong because Cardenas was resisting arrest on a felony warrant claiming receipt of stolen property.

In the 2005 case of the homeless man, Benjamin Barker, a district attorney’s investigation cleared police officers of wrongdoing.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice said arrest videos force the LAPD to look inward, though she acknowledged the images may “polarize and politicize police investigations.”

“Without them there is no pressure at all for police to examine use of force, and they are not policing themselves,” said Rice, who was appointed by the Police Commission to examine the LAPD’s response to allegations of widespread officer abuse.

Bob Baker, president of the department’s 9,000-member union, said police have nothing to hide. The union applauded plans to install cameras in some cruisers later this year, he said.

Uncut footage of arrests – even those requiring force – will insulate police from undue accusations of brutality, Baker said.

“Putting cameras in cars will give people a full story of what took place,” he said.

Chris Biller, a retired, 29-year LAPD veteran who led a protest outside a newspaper over its coverage of the videos, said the feeling of being constantly watched could put police in danger.

“It will cause policemen to hesitate, to look around,” said Biller, 68. “In action, this eventually may cause death or serious injury.”

Attorney John Barnett, who represented one of the officers in the King beating, said in-car cameras would encourage suspects and police to behave appropriately. Unedited images will usually show police meticulously follow guidelines, he said.

Still, Pacheco and other citizens intend to keep their cameras close.

“Nothing happens until it is shown in public,” Pacheco said. “Putting a spotlight on the LAPD is the only way we can weed out the bad apples.”

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